The Week In Weak

So, what was weak this week?

Trump Wins Again

I’d ask, “Honestly, GOP, can’t you do something about this?” But I know the answer. They can’t. They can’t because Trump’s voters, in all of their paranoia, bigotry, and irrationality, are exactly the kinds of voters that the GOP has been stirring up with vicious, irresponsible rhetoric since the late 1940s. It is true that Republicans used to exist who called out their own for doing this–Eisenhower, George Romney, Howard Baker–but they’re all very, very dead now, and no one has replaced them. So, here we are. The GOP can’t stop Trump because it is Trump. The only way it can stop him is to hold a primary in which it elects new GOP voters.

Protests continue in India as Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student union president Kanhaiya Kumar remains imprisoned, charged under section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, sedition. Kumar was arrested last week following a rally he helped organize on the JNU Delhi campus condemning the 2013 hanging of Mohammed Afzal Guru, a native of Kashmir who was convicted for his alleged role in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack.

At the center of this debate is the charge of sedition and its existence in the Indian Penal Code. Sedition, according to the Indian Penal Code, denotes any form of expression, whether it be verbal or written, that may induce any disaffection towards the Indian Government or India (Central Government Act, section 124A). First established in the late 19th century by the British to suppress any Indian nationalistic sentiment, India ironically continues to use it against its own citizens (Dutta, 2012).

An Egyptian organisation that documents rights abuses and treats torture victims, including victims of sexual violence, has filed an urgent application to a court in the hope of halting plans by authorities to shut it down.

The director of the Nadeem centre for the rehabilitation of victims of violence and torture told a news conference on Sunday that a health ministry decision to shut it down was part of the toughest crackdown on dissent in Egypt’s modern history.

“This is a political decision,” said Aida Seif el-Dawla. “And it’s coming from the cabinet that represents all the actors that are keen on the survival of this regime, despite the oppression and the torture that the Egyptian people are living through on a daily basis.”